


Playing Catch-Up

by vanillafluffy



Category: Criminal Minds, Storage Wars, The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors
Genre: M/M, Old Friends, Reunions, you can go home again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:38:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4112566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A couple years after relocating to DC, Jupe returns briefly to SoCal and Rocky Beach, but it's not the same. He reconnects with an old acquaintance, and fills him in on the last few years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Catch-Up

The high-low tone of the alarm announces it’s five a.m. to the occupant of the RV. He thrashes his way from under the covers to silence it, sitting on the edge of the bunk, trying to orient himself.

The rectangle of light coming from the half-open bathroom door shows him all-too-familiar surroundings, and for a moment, Jupe panics. It’s as if ten years has disappeared; he’ll go for his morning run, then he’s in for another day of placating Aunt Matilda and working in the salvage yard.

That’s not his life any more, is it? Was it all a dream, Spence and DC and their marriage?

The titanium band on his left hand reassures him; sleep-logged synapses clear enough for him to remember what he’s doing here, back where it all started.

God, he must be jet-lagged to have thought even for a minute that he’d hallucinated the best years of his life. Which is crazh, because right now in DC it’s 3 hours later and he would've come and gone on a two-mile run. 

He hauls himself out of the bunk—did he really sleep in such a confined space for years? He’s much more comfortable sharing a king-sized bed with Spence. 

Jupe heads into the bathroom to shave. The beard he’s cultivating these days doesn’t require a lot of attention, just scraping away some chin-stubble and maintaining the clean line from ears to mouth. His clothes are arranged and ready for him to dress. He’s pulling his flannel shirt over a tee shirt and jeans when the coffee pot begins to gurgle in the little galley kitchen.

Most of the coffee goes into a thermal mug for later, but he reserves one cup to help him finish waking up while he packs. 

The old RV has been tidied to await his next visit when he steps into the pre-dawn air. He’s made the bunk and bagged up the coffee grounds, which he drops into a trash can on his way to the rental truck. It’s 5:32 a.m.; the auction starts at 8, he may even have time to grab breakfast on the way.

The streets of his hometown are familiar, but after years away, Jupe feels a sense of unreality. Changes stand out; different cars in front of houses, new merchants in old storefronts, a fast-food franchise near the freeway…life here has gone on without him.

When he arrives at the storage facility where the auction is being held, there’s only one other vehicle in the lot. Jupe recognizes an old acquaintance, who calls a welcome as he emerges from the truck.

“Jones? Long time no see! How the hell are you?” The fiftyish man has bundled up in a heavy jacket and he raises an insulated travel mug in greeting.

“Pretty good, Dave,” Jupe replies, smiling at the older man. “How’s business?”

“Can’t complain. You still at the salvage yard?”

“No, not for a couple years now. I got married and moved to DC. Got a manager for the yard; it’s working out pretty well.” Dave doesn’t need to know all the details—Skinner Norris’s reign of terror and its aftermath—just that Jones Salvage Yard is still in operation.

“How about you?” Jupe asks, changing the subject. “I saw you on TV—how did you like your fifteen minutes of fame?”

“What a joke that was! It was fun at first, but that wore off real fast. Not to mention putting a crimp in business—all of a sudden, everybody wanted to make a killing buying storage lockers and the prices went crazy. No, I’m glad that’s over.”

“Yeah, I could tell you weren’t a happy camper,” Jupe agrees. “I know you; you don’t suffer fools, but you were never that much of a prick.”

“Thanks,” Dave’s tone is wry. “Hey, if you’re on the East Coast now, what brings you here?” His sweeping gesture encompasses the rows of storage buildings. 

Jupe debates how much to tell him, then figures Dave might cut him a break if he knows what’s what. 

“”We had a fire last year, and our townhouse burned to the ground. Nobody was hurt; Spence and I were out of town, and our neighbor Hollie was at work, but we lost everything.”

“That’s rough,” Dave sympathizes. “So I guess you’re looking to furnish your new place?”

“Yeah, right now we’re subletting a condo, but we don’t want to stay there when the lease runs out. The walls are paper-thin, which is inhibiting, to say the least, and the furniture is crap left behind by the original renter. 

“I came out to check on the yard, and heard about this auction.” Jupe shrugs. “I’m already hauling some stuff back with me, so I figured this might be a good place to pick up some of what we’ll need.” 

Dave laughs. “If you’re in a furnished place now, what are you going to do with what you win, put it in storage til you’re ready to move?”

Jupe chuckles. “No, we’ve got a building. One thing I have is space! But it was originally industrial, so I’m working on getting it converted before the lease is up.”

He pulls out his phone and calls up pictures.

“Looks like a warehouse.” Dave is dubious.

“It was built for a small publishing house. The ground floor was their warehouse, the middle floor was where the presses were—that’s mostly open space—and the top floor is offices. We’ll convert those into guest rooms eventually, but at the moment, I’ve been concentrating on turning the middle floor from this to this—“ 

He’s been documenting the transformation, and the pictures illustrate the dusty, neglected space becoming cleaner. Framework is erected. A kitchen appears in time-lapse magic. 

“What the hell?” Dave grabs his arm and studies the picture. 

“Our dining room,” Jupe says, trying and failing not to smirk.

“Is that—that looks like…a bowling alley?!” He’s staring at the subtly striped walls, and Jupe grins. 

“Yeah, the panels came out of an old bowling alley they were tearing down in Delaware. I got a really good deal on all the lanes I could haul off. The wood is gorgeous. I’m just hoping I can find a serious dining table that will do it justice.”

“Points to you, Jones—I don’t know anyone else who would’ve come up with that. Looks good.”

“It would be a crime to trash wood that nice. I used it as counters in the kitchen, too. Looks nice with the old brick walls, don’t you think?”

“Huh, I thought that was butcher-block.”

“I’m trying to practice what I preach and repurpose materials as much as I can. I’m working on a four-poster bed, the posts are eight-foot lengths of old telephone poles. With fifteen-foot ceilings, there’s plenty of room to play with scale.”

“What does your, um, spouse think of it?”

Jupe sighs. “Poor Spence, I’m walking a tightrope between doing it right and just getting it done, because he really hates the place we’re in. He has a high-stress job, and he says it’s like leaving one bee-hive and coming home to another.”

“He must be quite a guy for you to make a move like that.”

“He is.” Jupe finds another group of pictures. “This was our wedding. That’s a Buddhist retreat down the coast, we made a day cruise out of it and met up with our officiant…he’s a Buddhist monk, and his wife, who was the photographer, is a Wiccan high priestess. They’ve been married for thirty years, so we thought they might bring us a little extra luck.”

It’s a good picture, the two of them in matching white shirts and jeans, smiling amid the manicured splendor of the Japanese garden. Jupe remembers how Kevin turned to them after pronouncing them wed and asked if they felt married.

He and Spence looked at each other. “About the same as I did an hour ago,” Jupe said, and Spence asked, “What’s being married supposed to feel like?”

“Good answers,” Kevin replied. “Being married isn’t an event, it’s a process.”

Being married to Spence has added dimensions to his life Jupe never imagined, but Kevin was right: It’s not happily-ever-after; there are always things to work through, whether it’s the hazards of Spence’s job or Jupe adjusting to life in a cold climate or who drank the last of the milk. 

“He’s a great guy,” Jupe answers. “He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, and we can always find something to talk about, but we’re comfortable even if we’re just sitting around reading the Sunday paper and not talking.”

“Yup!” Dave says loudly, like he used to for the cameras, then lowers his voice. “As a guy who’s been married since you were both in diapers, I can tell you, that is the most important part of marriage. The hearts and flowers crap is for greeting cards; someone who knows when you need a hug is priceless.”

“Amen,” Jupe agrees, “and so is having someone to keep you warm when the heater’s on the fritz. That’s one thing I still have trouble with: Winter.

“You know, I never owned a winter coat til five years ago? Never really needed anything heavier than a sweatshirt. The first winter in DC, I thought I was going to freeze my balls off! I’d never seen snow. It’s pretty—at first!—but then it gets grey and nasty from pollution, and after a couple weeks of freezing temps, you get really tired of your fingers always being a little numb.”

“You’re from a small town. What about that? I mean, DC is huge, isn’t that hard to handle?”

“Rocky Beach has more or less turned into a bedroom community of LA over the years, and when you start comparing LA and DC, there’s not as much difference as you might expect. LA has a little more sprawl that DC, but you’ve got the Freeway here and the Beltway there. Here the cash cow is entertainment, there it’s politics. They’ve both got their fair share of gossip, the big difference is, Kim Kardashian is a lot prettier than John Boehner.”

Dave guffaws. “You’ve got that right!”

“The only thing I really miss is the beach. I grew up four blocks from the ocean, now I have to drive for an hour to get to a nice beach that’s not all built-up and commercialized. There are some good beaches on the East Coast, don’t get me wrong, but I’m spoiled; I just hope I can talk Spence into moving back here when he retires.”

The parking lot has been filling up during their conversation. A few auction regulars nod to Dave—Jupe doesn’t recognize any of them from his salvage yard days—and one intrepid soul comes up and asks Dave for an autograph.

Jupe takes that as his cue to wander off, have some coffee and stretch. Funny, he’s perfectly comfortable in his flannel shirt and tee, but the Californians around him are bundled up as if the temp was a lot lower than fifty-eight degrees. He grins to himself. He must have gotten more acclimated to cold weather than he’s given himself credit for—of course, a few days ago, he was out running at 6 a.m. with a wind-chill in the teens….

He’s dealt with these auctioneers before, and amazingly, he’s still on their list of vetted buyers. That makes for a quick and easy sign-up process. Now, if he can just get a table, or a few good bookcases, or…well, it’s a long way from LA to DC, if he doesn’t get anything useful here, maybe he’ll run into some deals along the way.

It’s just as well he’s philosophical about it, Jupe decides an hour later, because the first few units have been crap. One of them was heaped with plastic garbage bags spilling cheap polyester clothes amid a few pieces of patio furniture. Another held the twin of the sectional sofa he hates so much at the condo. A locker full of bedroom furniture catches his eye—with a half-dozen guest rooms to fill, some of it might come in handy—but the price jumps past what he’s willing to pay for it before he can even raise his card.

There are only a couple units left when Jupe comes to high alert. The unit that’s just been opened is stuffed with furniture. The first thing he sees are a cluster of sleek mid-century dining room chairs stacked atop a blue tarp that presumably shields the table they match. There’s a beat-up leather sofa, some boxes, and—oh god. 

Under a sheet of clear plastic at the front of the unit is a vast expanse of dark wood. It’s a partner desk, and Jupe’s imagination parks it at the northeast corner of the loft where it’ll catch the afternoon light. It’s easy to picture him and Spence sitting on either side of it with their respective laptops, commenting on the latest e-issue of Popular Science….

He has to win it first. 

Two different bidders are interested. One of them drops out at $600. Jupe gives the other one a look that should warn him that Jupe isn’t going home without that desk, so forget it.

The bidding hits a thousand, and the other guy still hasn’t shut up. Eleven hundred, and Jupe’s about to make it twelve, when Dave barks, “Yup!”

Son of a bitch. Dave is trying to snake his unit.

“Do I hear thirteen?” the auctioneer calls. 

Not a word out of the competition this time. “Thirteen!” Jupe bellows.

“Fourteen? Do I hear fourteen?” He doesn’t. “Sold for thirteen to the long-lost Mr. Jones!”

“Want to tell me what that was about?” Jupe asks Dave, who’s hung around to wait for him to padlock the unit.

“Consider it a belated wedding present,” Dave says, apparently serious. “I know that schmuck who was bidding against you. If I hadn’t stepped in, you’d still be going at it—but I intimidate the hell out of him. I knew if I got into it, he’d fold, and he did.”

Dave’s been at this game since Jupe was a kid; Jupe recognizes the truth of the assessment and nods. “Thanks.”

The last locker doesn’t look like anything he remotely needs, so Jupe settles his account with the auctioneer’s assistant and heads back to examine his purchases.

The desk is magnificent; new, it would easily cost twice what he paid for it, but from its patina, it’s clearly not new, and Jupe sighs happily. The drawers are full of the usual odds and ends—pens and rulers and assorted papers—but there’s no damage anywhere, and that’s the important thing.

The leather of the side panel at one end of the couch has split where it joins the armrest, but that can be fixed. The piece is genuine leather and has an aged character Jupe appreciates. It beats the hell out of that floral monstrosity they’ve been living with.

Jupe opens a box at random: Woohoo, there’s an iron Japanese teapot, which will replace the one he lost in the fire. A pair of silvery candelabras, not bad….

There are six stream-lined birchwood chairs above the blue tarp, and he’s working his way toward the back of the unit to peel it back and take a look, when Dave arrives. “Find anything good?”

“So far, it all looks good. The sofa needs some TLC, but it’ll do, and that desk—! Thanks again, Dave. I had to have it, it’s perfect. I know exactly where I’m going to put it.”

“Good. What about your table? I saw those chairs, I figured you were going to go after the set.”

“Haven’t got that far. Come on, let’s take a look—“

Dave joins him, and Jupe lifts the blue plastic to reveal a pair of thick legs of ball-and-paw design of a much darker wood than the modern chairs. Raising it higher reveals a deep apron with a long rectangular recess.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a pool table,” Dave observes, and Jupe lets the tarp fall.

“Great. Not that I mind having a pool table; I’ve got some ideas for a game room—but that’s not really a priority at the moment, y’know? But the price was right.”

“Yeah, I might’ve had to bid for real if I’d known about that.” 

Dave doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the loss, though, and he helps Jupe load the rental truck. Between his help, and an offer of $50 cash to one of the departing auction-goes, Jupe gets his weighty purchases loaded for transport.

Most of it goes on the truck, although there’s a floral pastel rug that Jupe presents to Dave, who is only too willing to take it. 

“That’s Aubusson, it’s worth some real money,” Dave tells him, though from the way he’s eyeing the car[et, he’s already calculating how much to ask for it.

“It’s not our kind of thing, and I owe you. If you want it, it’s yours.”

“Much obliged. It was good to see you again, Jupe. Stay in touch. The next time you’re in town, give me a call.”

“You too. If you ever make it to DC—“

“I know—you’ve got a spare guest room or five.”

Not a bad day, Jupe thinks, climbing into the cab of the truck. And it’s still just after noon. A quick stop for lunch—he never did get breakfast—and if he pushes it, he’ll spend the night in Vegas. 

Tomorrow, he’ll pay a visit to his mother-in-law and he really wants to check out the Neon Museum. On the way out of town, he'll investigate a couple places in hopes of picking more interesting artifacts. 

Jupe rolls down the window. The day has warmed up; it’s a balmy seventy-two degrees, and he means to enjoy it for as long as he can. Home is a hell of a lot colder—but it’s whereever Spence is.

 

***


End file.
